ACADIAN GRANDFATHERS

…et en hommage à nos mères A COLLECTION OF THINGS ACADIAN…

…resulting from research and study commenced in 1961. I am a retired USAF Command Pilot and Staff Officer who became aware in ’61 that the home of seven generations of my paternal grandfathers lay to the southwest of my duty station in Stephenville, Newfoundland. I published the Devoe-deVaux Family History 1691-1991 in 1999 which is the basis for much of what is presented here.

ATTENTION

The data on this site, as indicated above, enjoys a copyright. No use of this material is permitted in any form or language without prior consent from me. Such permission for subsequent use will, in all cases, be granted if guidelines which I will provide when such permission is sought are followed. Much time and treasure has been expended by me in the accumulation of the material presented; do me the courtesy of honoring this stipulation. JBD

All copies of the Devoe-deVaux Family History 1691-1991 published by me in 1999 have been sold. The public libraries of New York City and Montreal have purchased copies as has the University of Ste. Anne in Nova Scotia; the Mormon Library in Utah has purchased a copy as well. I have donated a number of copies to genealogical repositories: Center for Acadian Studies, University of Moncton; Beaton Institute, Sydney; Cape Breton, The Acadian Cultural Society, Fitchburg MA; Three Gables Historical Museum, Cheticamp, Cape Breton; The New England Historic and Genealogical Society, Boston MA; The American-Canadian Genealogical Society, Manchester, NH. A Second Edition in the form of a CD of the entire contents of the book will be available in the Spring of 2004…for details ® Click here ¬

No Acadian family has legitimate title to arms; the armorial shown is used as a decorative icon, see below*

NOTE

This website was created on Internet Explorer and with Microsoft Word which converts my texts and images to HTML. Unless you have both of these programs activated on your machine no images (which includes any scanned data [picture or text]) will be available to you. My texts will be available.

I would be interested in hearing from you with respect to the content of this site and/or your ability to access all the material. Cordially, John

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ACADIAN AT BEAUBASSIN, 1998

Today, alone of all my scattered race, I see again the beauty of our land,

Made fair and fruitful by a banished hand; Endeared of tongue never to know this place.

Meadows and dykes, and hearths now cold I trace; And tyrant tides never to brook command.

Where undisturbed the rustling willows stand, And the curved grass, telling the breeze’s pace.

Before the march of power the weak must bend, And yet forgive. The savage strong will smite.

The glossing words of reason and of song, To tell of hate and virtue to defend,

Shall never set the bitter deed aright, Nor satisfy the ages with the wrong.

JOHN FREDERICK HERBIN

RETURN TO BEAUBASSIN

Woe fell upon you, ye genial race - -Ye exile sons of lily France !

This is no more your dwelling place, - - Ye live in music and romance;

But oft as purple eventide, Bathes all these hills in fire and dew,

Some wanderer by the riverside Shall drop a tear and dream of you.

The vale still rings with childhood’s song Amid its yellowing sea of flowers,

While days of summer glide along On wings of light through all your bowers;

Here are the trees you planted - - here, The remnants of your broken homes;

But to old graves, from year to year, No ghostly mourner ever comes.

ARTHUR JOHN LOCKHART

Meet my great-grandfather Read about his schooners

For a Table of Contents of other pages on this site

SCROLL FURTHER DOWN FOR NOTES, INFORMATION ON MY BOOK, UPDATES ON THIS SITE,

COMMENTS ON CORRESPONDENCE WITH STEVE WHITE.

● *The armorial shown dates from the 12^th century and represents the deVaux family of the old province of Dauphiné in southeastern France from which the Acadian progenitor Michel DeVaux is believed to have come.

● Stephen A. White. The late Father Clarence d’Entremont introduced me to Steve at a meeting of the Acadian Historical Society (New England Group) in Boston in 1972. Steve lived in Wayland MA and was at the time a practicing barrister in Boston who had done considerable Acadian genealogical research in both Richmond County, Nova Scotia and in the Greater Boston area, much as I had done, albeit my interest limited primarily to the Devoe (DeVaux) family. My early efforts on the church registers of Richmond County had begun during visits beginning in 1962; Steve began some four years later, in earnest and with all families. I had taken to the meeting copies of the considerable material I had gathered from 1961 through 1965 (most of it from very specifically identified original sources in both areas) and presented it to Steve. It kindled (or re-kindled) an interest in this relatively “small” (as he accurately described it) Acadian family. As a result he initiated correspondence with me in April of that year which continued (often sporadically due to exigencies including sorrowful events in my life) through the late 1990s. I have been led to understand that Steve has no objection to his correspondence with individuals on the subject of genealogy being made public, and thus I will eventually attempt to include much or all of it on this site. As anyone who has had the experience of communicating with Steve can attest, it make for interesting reading…one even finds compliments occasionally scattered between the guidance.

Since my interest has always been limited to a family history concentrated on my Acadian paternal line, the letters deal primarily with that line; for clarification I will include both ends of the correspondence. A brief description of the basic parameters of the data shared follows:

By 1965 I had refined and corrected much of what I had found in Gaudet and Arsenault with respect to the lineage of my DeVaux ancestors including the discounting of any suggestion (from a number of sources) of a direct connection to the Cheticamp DeVaux family and had formulated an hypothesis which described my Acadian grandfather’s lineage (from progenitor Michel of Beaubassin) which has stood the test of both time and S.A.W. I had also discovered the 1847 move of four families from the Isle Madame to the Little Bras d’Or area of Cape Breton, those named DeVaux, Richard, LeBlanc and Dugas and this was of interest to Steve, familiar with the history of these families in Richmond County. The original source material (personally researched church registers) which I have provided him from Cape Breton County includes some 120 births and 40 marriages, the acts integrating some from all four families, but primarily those of the descendants of my great-grandfathers Pierre DeVaux and François-Regis Richard. My papers also listed over 400 births and 100 marriages of family provided data from those family members of Iona, Cape Breton, Boston Massachusetts, and a number of states in the western United States. The migrations of the DeVaux family members to the western U.S. interested him as well.

In return, Steve provided considerable guidance to me with respect to what one is wise to do and not do with respect to material gathered, evaluations of the quality of a number what might be called tertiary sources as well as the quality of the work of certain individuals. He supported and complimented me on my attention to the specific identification of my sources, original and other, and, as is his wont, did much to explain to me the intricacies and value of dispensations and how he puts them to use. Steve confirmed what I had discovered with respect to the DeVaux family of Richmond County, descendants of Charles (he and his son Joseph considered founders of the Arichat parish), adding data from the 1871 census of that county, my investigation of which had been limited to Cape Breton County. Two questions concerning wives were beyond my capabilities and I sought his help there. While not supported (and not likely to be) by documentation, Steve deduced for me the mother of my ancestor Joseph with conviction and, after years and many letters on the subject, eventually (in the absence of his mother’s name [it read simply “A. Deveau”] in a civil record of his second marriage at age 68 which I had located) deduced to describe the mother of my ancestor Pierre (son of Joseph’s long mysterious second wife) as an “unrecorded daughter of Alexandre LeBlanc” of Grand Digue (Poulamon). This final effort was prompted by a 1997 letter from me enclosing a portion of land grant map of the Grand Digue (as indicated, now Poulamon) area which included the land of Joseph and his surrounding neighbors. Steve replied, allowing as how the situation shown was “…of great consequence. You are quite right to insist upon it. Indeed, your perceptiveness in this regard is quite remarkable…What is significant is who his neighbors were. You have insisted upon this as well. And this opens up a new line of inquiry.” Steve had written from home with no access to his famous three-ring notebooks and had hoped to find a more conclusive answer to the puzzle at his desk. He followed up a few months later with a five- page letter and a number of his equally well-known charts where he “offers terms” rather than “pursue an unconditional surrender” on the matter of Pierre’s mother, choosing a daughter of Alexandre as the “best” candidate. I have accepted his deduced speculation as the best answer I am likely to find.

I do not anticipate an early inclusion of his letters on this site, but directions to them will be noted here as well as on my Salut page. JBD 10 MAY 2001

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